AKA William

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If any of you have missed this story, the new Advocate interview with fired news anchor Charles Perez is a great way to catch up.

In the interview, Perez talks about being out in television which, of course, leads to discussion of Anderson Cooper. And Perez makes a great point:

Anderson was on Oprah; he did an hour with his mom. It was great. He talked about his childhood. He talked about his brother’s suicide. He talked about wanting to be a journalist and going to Africa in his 20s with his own camera. And I applaud him for that. There are a lot of kids who come from privilege who would have never done that. I applaud him as a newsman.

But I thought something very interesting. I thought, If you had a straight newsman with that profile of that same age, who is reasonably handsome, who is unmarried, would Oprah not have even asked the question if he was seeing somebody? And I can only imagine that it was negotiated ahead of time, or it was understood between them.

Admirably, Perez thinks that, while coming out has destroyed his anchor career, he is eager to find a new format for his voice:

I look at people like Rachel Maddow who have created wonderful forms for themselves . . . I think there are great stories to be told — great gay and lesbian stories to be told. I am — this is really important to me in spite of everything that has happened — a lucky guy. I’m the lucky guy because I can take this to a public forum.

The interview reminded me of the interview “Ugly Betty’s” Michael Urie gave recently where he talked about his dog’s digestion, his apartment, his hair, but when talked turned to his sexuality, Urie said that he preferred to keep to non-personal questions.

Urie should take not of what Perez did and is doing.